


Optimus Reim: The Sharks' Streak

by MeansToOffend (goodmorning)



Series: Optimus Reim, Cursebreaker, and Other Magic Goalies [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2015-2016 NHL Season, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Crack, Crack Played Slightly Straight, Gen, This is a prequel, although it might, it might not make sense unless you read the other one first, this one's played a bit straighter than the first one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-13 08:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9115162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorning/pseuds/MeansToOffend
Summary: When a decades-long playoff curse needs breaking, who can the Sharks call?Optimus Reim!Or:"All the rest in the world can't help Jonesy if Reims doesn't do his other job, it turns out.The Sharks are cursed. Playoff cursed."





	

Reims never actually believed the Leafs were going to trade him until it happened. He's really not sure the Leafs believed it either.

He'd known at the very beginning of his going-to-be-pro career that he wasn't going to be drafted for his goaltending, and he turned out to have been right: he'd gone 99th overall to the Toronto Maple Leafs, who were in desperate need of a good -

Cursebreaker.

That he could also stop a puck was just a nice bonus.

But by the time Jean-Sebastien got injured, by the time Reims got called up to sit on the bench for Monster, by the time they expected him to start looking for the curse, he'd already looked, already known what answer he was going to have to give them: there was no curse.

It was a fact that had gotten lost when Reims fell into the starting job and played better than anyone other than his agent had expected him to. It was a fact that had stayed lost through his ridiculous and unfortunate number of injuries.

It was a fact that had sort of been found again when Bernier came, that had built in strength during Reims' time as a backup, when he'd requested a trade and they'd refused because they still wanted him to find and fix a problem that just wasn't there. Or, to put it another way, there was a problem - it just wasn't supernatural. And Reims had no control over the only mechanisms that could solve this one.

By the time the final year on his contract rolled around, they'd actually started fixing it themselves. Reims, no longer hampered by that particular distraction, had managed to snatch the starting job back.

At which point he'd promptly been traded to the Sharks.

\--

_When he was a kid, about to get drafted, he'd said he'd like to go to LA, play hockey in all that sunshine._

_San Jose's not quite on the same level, but it's_ far _better than Toronto._

\--

So the Leafs weren't the only ones who wanted him for his cursebreaking. But the Sharks are different, because they want him for his goaltending too. They give him a week to learn their system, where his defensemen are likely to be and what rebounds they'll be best able to handle (and that in itself is a huge relief - defensemen he can actually trust to handle a rebound? Though they do also have Polak...), and then they throw him in net when the Canucks come to town.

Except that the team in front of him chooses that game to commit about a thousand penalties. Especially his defensemen.

Jonesy shoots him a commiserating look from across the room. He doesn't have to say anything for Reims to know exactly what he means.

\--

They don't rest Reims, which is fair enough, because there're two days sans games and also he's not the starter here. He always does well against Edmonton, anyway.

He gets a shutout.

 _He_ gets a _shutout_.

It's been _years_ since he's had a shutout.

He'd almost forgotten how amazing it feels.

When he finally heads to the room and removes his gear, he starts, as is only reasonable, with his plain white I-was-just-traded mask. He doesn't get any farther than that before Jonesy is there, patting his hot and still disgustingly sweaty head. Reims pats Jonesy's head right back, grinning like an absolute lunatic.

\--

By the time April rolls around, he's in Minnesota, posting his third shutout in eight games. It's starting to feel old hat in some ways, but he doesn't think he'll ever get tired of it.

On the plane back to California, they tell him Jonesy will play the last two games.

"I thought you were resting him for the playoffs?" Reims says, and it comes out a question because he's not trying to accuse anyone; it doesn't occur to him that this could have been a return of the starting job until it's pointed out to him, much later, by Jonesy.

All the rest in the world can't help Jonesy if Reims doesn't do his other job, it turns out.

The Sharks are cursed. Playoff cursed.

\--

Reims uses his newfound four days of relatively undivided focus to watch tape. It's a good thing they gave him the time, because he ends up needing almost every bit of it. The Sharks may not be the most well-respected team, but they've been to the playoffs far more often than not, and over the years that starts to add up.

It's bad.

The curse is big, and it drapes its appendages over and around and through the arena like a malevolent octopus, clinging and grabbing and moving with them as though they really were tentacles. When he gets the shape of it, he pauses the tape and does some research, trying to find out if the Sharks had ever pissed off a fisherman or an environmentalist or even the Red Wings. Initially, he thinks he might be on to something with the latter; the 1994 playoff upset, the 1995 game called on account of flooding, the Red Wings' rescheduled win, the revenge 2nd round playoff sweep - but it doesn't line up: the Sharks were already cursed in '94, and Detroit had taken 19 of 22 standings points in their regular season meetings to that point, with no contentious injuries or especially bad blood between them.

Coming up empty sucks. Since Reims doesn't know who set the curse on them in the first place, he can't try to talk them into letting it go. No, he's going to have to break it himself.

So he watches.

He watches as they upset Cup favourites before imploding, building fans' hopes in a way that makes him think of the witch fattening Hansel. He watches as the curse experiments with not letting them win at all. He watches it stretch slimy tendrils towards players from every season, takes Iafrate's feet out from under him, nudges a defenseman over to screen Nabokov at a critical second. He watches the horrible moment in April '09 when the curse decides to try irony, when the plucky underdog wins at last but for once isn't the Sharks. He watches the away games as well, which bears fruit when he sees something extend from the neck of Dan Boyle's sweater and the OT own goal that results. Last of all, he watches the reverse sweep, sees what the curse polished its original game plan into, the lopsided home loss in the deciding game, the curse trembling with excitement at having outdone itself.

Reims is pretty sure he doesn't want to see what its plan is this year.

\--

He still has to go to the rink several times over those four days, backing up both games from the bench. He stays afterwards each time to search for the curse, wandering the halls, talking his way into kitchens, the pressbox, the rafters, the visitors' dressing room - but there's no sign of it anywhere.

Until the playoffs start.

\--

It's their last home practice before they leave for LA, and it's in the Shark Tank. Reims thinks that's probably because of him, but he doesn't think to ask. Mostly that's because when he walks in, he nearly turns around and leaves: the curse is _right there_.

It's massive, bigger than it looked on any of the tape, but that doesn't bother him as much as the smell. He's completely unprepared for the scent of dead fish and rotting seaweed where clean ice and a little honest sweat should be.

Jonesy shows up ten minutes later. He looks pale, too, but it's not til after they're done that Reims, exhausted more from restraining tentacles than from the practice itself, finds out why.

"I was up all night crafting wards," he says when Reims asks if he's alright. "I'm not sure they'll be strong enough to help, but they won't hurt, right?"

"Probably not," says Reims, after thinking for a moment, "but I'd have to see them to be sure." He'll probably also have to keep the curse off Jonesy, if his own wards aren't strong enough; wardscrafters, like cursemakers, tend to be so steeped in creative magic that they lose most of their resistance by the age of 20. Really, checking them now is killing two birds with one stone.

The wards are beautifully subtle, as it turns out; Jonesy has woven them through the stitches that bind their nameplates to their jerseys. Reims wouldn't even have noticed them if he hadn't been told they were there. He runs his fingers over Pavs', expecting them to be delicate, sure that he'll need to know their shape so he can work around them without causing damage.

It's his second surprise of the day; the ward isn't fragile at all.

It feels like the sea: like a pod of dolphins rescuing a drowning swimmer, like a shark, ravenous, alert for prey. Irresistable, like a riptide, it tries to pull his attention permanently away from shore; inexorable, like an undertow, it tries to tug his consciousness down, to keep him forever, within itself, at the bottom of the sea.

"It's not weak," he says out loud, breaking out of it. The effort is a lot, and it's not only because he's tired. He watches Jonesy's ears redden at the compliment until he realises the silence is stretching and grasps for something else to say. "Did you shape it like that on purpose?" is all he can come up with.

"I don't see shapes," Jonesy says. "Just shadows and lights, where curses and wards touch people. I can only feel my own, and they feel like threads to me. What-" he says, and cuts himself off, obviously considering. Reims waits for him to decide: either a 'never mind' or a finish to the question.

"Would it be rude -?" Jonesy finally starts, then restarts: "I've always wondered what they look like to someone else."

Reims tells him - the shape of the ward, and of the curse, about tides and tentacles - and then turns away to add: "do your wards find all cursebreakers threatening, or just me?" He hears Jonesy draw in a sharp breath behind him, takes down his own jersey and fingers the nameplate absently, trying hard to keep a poker face.

He freezes.

There's a ward on his nameplate too.

Jonesy knows Reims is a cursebreaker, is resistant to curses. Why would he waste energy on a ward for him?

Jonesy is saying something now, but Reims' attention is already on his nameplate. He's feeling it out, wondering if he'll be able to cope with the curse while a ward sits suspicious on his back.

It's not the same.

It's like the sea again, sure, but this time it's shark skin, dark above and light below; it's eels in coral and flounder in the sand; it's being one fish among many, the centre of the school; it's color-changing cuttlefish and the bright bait light of an anglerfish's lure. It, too, pulls him in, but it's not trying to keep him; it's trying to hide him.

"Oh," he says, turning to look at Jonesy with the ward still wrapped around him. Jonesy stops talking. "Is this meant to distract it from me?"

"Yeah," says Jonesy, relaxing. "I thought you'd be the best one of us to use it on since you're the one doing the hard job. And if it doesn't notice you;re trying to break it..."

"Thank you," Reims says, and hugs him.

\--

He doesn't see the curse during either of their games in LA. He's not really sure if it's lying low or if the wards have kept it off or both, but it's nice to have a few days in standby mode after a week of being red alert. He spends all 60 minutes of their first game back home looking for it; unfortunately, the game goes into OT and it strikes when he's stopped worrying.

It gets DeBoer to tap Polak in, pulls Couture ever-so-slightly in the wrong direction, and it's over before Jonesy even sees what's happening, before Reims can stop it.

Reims pays closer attention the next two games. The curse doesn't seem to be trying very hard during their home win in Game 4, and it's weak when they're away; lacking its anchor, it has a lot of trouble getting past Jonesy's wards.

He's only been a Shark for a couple months, but the Game 5 win feels like revenge.

\--

Winning in 5 means he has a week to work on breaking it. He's at the arena every chance he gets.

It takes him three days to discover he can pull off its tentacles. 

He's tried everything, at that point, and has nearly given up. He can't find the centre of it anywhere, and in frustration, he seizes a tentacle and begins to pull, trying to drag it out of hiding, into the light, where he can take it apart and make it disappear forever.

There's a noise, not of rending flesh but of a rent spell, and he's holding a tentacle in his hand, one end oozing dark globules of ill-will magic that evaporate before they hit the ground.

It takes two hours for him to pull it apart until the pieces are small enough to absorb.

\--

Reims doesn't give it a chance to do anything during their series with Nashville; it's down to two tentacles and still licking its wounds when they win in Game 7.

\--

It comes back with those two tentacles and a vengeance during Game 4 against St. Louis.

The first two goals are just them being sloppy.

He thinks so, anyway. He didn't _see_ the curse when Burnsie tripped Schwartz, or when Jonesy saved three shots in a row but couldn't reach the fourth.

He definitely sees it hold Pickles up just long enough for Schwartz to get the pass off on the third goal, though. From then on, he tries to pay more attention, but Polak misplays one because he's Polak, and Jonesy, just a little rattled, stumbles, and it turns into the Blues' fourth goal, just 30 minutes in.

They have to yank Jonesy. They have to put Reims in. He has to stop pucks and the curse at the same time.

But the curse doesn't make Wardo put the puck over the glass, and it doesn't do anything (other than exist) to distract Reims from making the save, but Wardo does and Reims doesn't and he really needs to focus up a little.

It does help that the team in front of him is playing better; he only sees six shots besides Brouwer's power play goal, and only one of them is even remotely difficult to save. The better they play, the more time he can devote to holding back the curse, which lets them play even better...

\--

The Blues score an empty-netter after Reims is pulled, but the Sharks weren't going to win at that point anyway.

\--

When Reims makes it to the room he's more exhausted than he ever remembers being in his life, but he pulls it together enough to keep holding off the curse over the next two games. The loss seems to remind the rest of the team to try, too, and the combination makes for two strangely easy wins.

\--

They don't touch the Campbell Bowl.

(Reims is a little curious about whether it would have done anything but mostly he's just glad he doesn't have to deal with any additional fallout.)

\--

He gets the last two tentacles before they go to Pittsburgh, but he still can't find where it's hiding. He hopes it doesn't grow any back.

\--

Things are bad in Pittsburgh. He doesn't want to think about it.

\--

It's Game 3, and Reims is angry. He's been trying to solve this methodically, solve it the right way, for _months_ , and it's _still not over_.

He's sitting on the bench again, waiting for something to go wrong, _again_ , and something just... snaps.

He tips his head back, closes his eyes, and lets his magic go.

\--

He _is_ the magic, expanding rapidly, sweeping through the crowd. He can feel a few good luck charms fizzling out as he unintentionally consumes them, thinks he accidentally breaks a couple cold curses, but none of that stops him. In the kitchens the chef's favourite blender starts working again; Pierre's glamour on his network bosses wavers briefly before snapping back hard; that weird mousy smell in the last visiting shower stall vanishes forever; but he keeps going.

He finds it on the roof. For a minute, being outside the building reminds him he has a body inside it, almost makes him snap back into it, but the moment passes.

Reims stares down the curse, takes the shape of a shark, and grins.

\--

They end up losing the series (losing the Cup) anyway, but at least the curse is gone for good.

\--

His contract expires. The Sharks have some solid goalies in development and the curse is no more, so they don't really need Reims back. Reims isn't interested in being a permanent backup, so he doesn't need the Sharks back.

They part ways amicably. Reims swears to himself that he'll never break a curse again, though he knows he doesn't mean it.

Swearing not to get sloppy is a promise he thinks he can keep, though.

\--

On Friday, July 1, Reims' agent calls him with a couple of interested teams. None of them want a starter for the next season, but at least it's a job.

Then Ray tells him what Florida is offering. Term? 1B money? _Both?_ The chance to back up Luongo? The potential to become the starter after his retirement? _And_ almost no media, too?

\--

_Looks like Reims gets to play hockey in the sunshine after all._

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a thing that happened.
> 
> \- Now that he's adjusted to playing in Florida I feel slightly safe writing this.  
> \- It was ~2.5 years between Reimer's previous shutout (Oct 29, 2013, in Edmonton) and the next one, referenced here (March 8, 2016, also in Edmonton). All the other referenced game events are also true (except when magic occurs, of course).  
> \- Fish camouflage is cool stuff. ~~Just ask Willie Mitchell.~~  
>  \- Having reread this a couple times for grammar and syntax and all that, I think there's only one bit that really needs the first one for context and it's not very important to this story so ??
> 
> \- From the previous story's endnote: "People in this crack universe either have magic or they don't. All goalies do, except Quick, because have you ever seen that guy talk? He's super normal. Gretzky does. Most skaters don't."


End file.
